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mvcornelius
Reviews
Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes (2024)
Predictable and a little too long
The visuals in this film are pretty solid. There are some nicely framed shots and everything looks good. The plot is really basic. Bad guys do bad stuff and the main character has to go to the heart of darkness to make it right. Some of the main points were foreshadowed so hard I thought they must be making the movie for 12 year old kids. It's not a terrible movie but it certainly is forgettable. The set up for the next film makes me wonder how this will all fit in with the long list of prior films. Seems a bit off track to me at this point. This film does not have me anticipating a sequel at all.
Rebel Moon - Part One: A Child of Fire (2023)
A Collection of Sci-Fi Fantasy Tropes
I'm hard pressed to think of a trope they left out of this movie. There is not a single scene with an original idea. Most of the movie is a condensed version of the Star Wars saga but there are bits of just about every other sci-fi/fantasy movie thrown in as well. Visually its good looking and the acting was acceptable for an action movie. It's the plot worth of many eye rolls and groans that kills it.
The story is about a reluctant hero that gets the gang together to fight the evil empire. The bad guy is super bad of course and the hero is an unstoppable badass. There are no surprises here. You can hear the dialog in your head before the characters speak because you have seen this movie many times before.
Stowaway (2021)
Starts slow and then gets silly
After a slow start the cast has to solve some problems aboard the ship. That's when it seems like none of them have ever trained for a space mission. I cringed as they failed to secure themselves to the ship during a spacewalk. No sane person would do that!
Another Life (2019)
Nonsense and Cliffhangers
In this poorly acted tropefest you will be left wondering how this crew of idiots and hotheads could possibly have been given the keys to the starship that is supposed to save mankind. There are eye rolling moments in every episode such as when the captain has to manually steer the spaceship through an asteroid field as if they were gliding along at 100mph. Each episode ends with a cliffhanger and Honestly it needs to or you would never think to start the next episode.
Lords of Dogtown (2005)
A decent effort that's lacking in emotional involvement
I have been a skateboarder since the 70's. I lived through the rise of the Dogtown era. This movie details many of the events surrounding Dogtown crew and does so with nice accuracy for the skating, dress and attitude. What is does not do is expand on the emotions of the participants. How did they FEEL about all they were experiencing. The Documentary "Dogtown and Z-Boys actually does a better job in this regard. Since there is little emotional engagement with the characters there is really no problem to work out in the third act. The movie seems to end abruptly. I think this movie is a decent effort overall however. Now that writer Stacy Peralta has this autobiographical movie out of his system I have high hopes that his next movie will be more focused on characters and their inner voice rather than showing all the events that made up an era.